Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and premonitions

I posted this six years ago and thought I would post it again. Does anyone have TLE and experience premontions or other paranormal experiences that don't seem to be related to the TLE?

I have been diagnosed with TLE but can not take medication. Still not sure after all these years what type of seizures I am having. I have had a few two or three second dizzy spells that I am able to talk and function right through. They are calling those the seizures. I also have had many premonitions and some other bizarre visions. These are not the kind that are typical with seizures. These are partial visions that eventually come true. And they are not coincidences. I had a vision of 911 and many other occurances. I have had these all my life---long before the TLE diagnosis. Furthermore, I am not crazy. I'm a professional who seldom admits to these premonitions because I am afraid people will think I'm crazy.

I thought I read a similar post here but now I can't locate.

I would be interested in finding out if anyone else with TLE has these experiences. In particular, any TLE patients that are not on medication.

Comments

I am surprised nobody responded to this - if you look at the 'Ecstatic Seizures' thread, you'll see a lot of information there from people with TLE who have had paranormal experiences all of their lives. I find it fascinating how many people who suffer from TLE also had psychic experiences from their earliest days. Hopefully one day the worlds of the paranormal and science will converge and we'll be able to understand the 'why' behind such interesting phenomenon as premonitions coming true, out of body experiences, etc. I have Left TLE and am on very minimal medication (by choice, the docs would love for me take at least 4x more than what I'm taking) and have had extranormal / paranormal experiences during my entire life, while the TLE symptoms didn't start until I was close to 40 and I didn't start on any medication until I was about 42. So - go figure! :)

I saw a fascinating video on YouTube of a neurologist who had a stroke that occurred in the left temporal lobe of her brain. Her name is Dr. Jill Taylor. Imagine studying the brain for decades, and then you experience the very thing you've studied from the inside out, a front row seat so to speak. If you search her name and the word 'stroke' on YouTube you can see the video. She had an absolutely amazing experience where she went from her usual scientific/factual view of the world to feeling part of the universe and experiencing herself as an 'energy being' (as she put it). Although it was a stroke and not a seizure, there are some similarities in terms of the ecstatic nature of her stroke experience that some TLE patients experience with their seizures. It's really quite lovely to watch.

Hopefully others will respond to this thread and put in their two cents :)

yes, I had that too. It's a seizure. I started get a huge number of these events, accompanied by panic attacks and after several years of this finally got diagnosed. Looking back, I have had a number of "odd" experiences since childhood (now in my 50's) but I'm pretty sure it was the same problem, only at a milder state. My seizures are caused by a type of brain tumor that is dynamic (but benign.)

Seizures stopped when I finally got treatment. This is pretty typical in TLE. The symptoms can be these sorts of experiences - - they don't seem like seizures so even if you tell a doc about them, they won't likely put the picture together. You may well have been having seizures longer than you think. Seizures tend to get worse over time if not treated. You say you only had TLE symptoms recently? What were those symptoms which finally lead to the diagnosis?

BTW, I'm an MD. Just because something seems paranormal, doesn't mean it's not due to a brain problem. After all, even if you did have a "real" paranormal experience (this seems like a contradiction in terms) it would be your brain that would register the experience. So, personally, I don't see how anyone can tell by themselves what is a "real" experience and what is a brain experience that's trigger by a disease process.

Schizophrenics hear voices. That doesn't mean they are real, even though they are very real to the patient. The only way we know these are symptoms and not "real" is that no one else can hear the voices and what the voices say doesn't make any real sense (the patients think they do make sense, but they don't).

So logic tells me that if a patient with TLE has a paranormal experience, it's a seizure.

I didn't see the YouTube video sparke mentioned, but there is no way a stroke can be seen a positive thing. Part of your brain is dead for heaven's sake! (no pun intended). Often people with brain damage have emotions which don't coincide with reality. For example some MS patients laugh when they are talking about sad things. It's brain damage, plain and simple.

My TLE premonitions also helped me greatly with university
examinations. Unfortunately, the prejudices to epilepsy result
in, in the Civilization of today, my very high scores on IQ
tests being regarded as evidence of severe brain damage. For
sure, with my "brain problem", I am too stupid to successfully
fake stupid so as to meet the expectations complacent to
Civilization's prejudices regarding epilepsy.

Sorry. I don't check this thread often. I am still not on medication and living life like I'm fine despite a second diagnosis of tle. As a profession, I talk very little about the epilepsy and even less about the premonitions. My premonitions can be controlled. While at times I feel people around me----yes much like Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghost---I can send them away quite easily. I often wonder how they know I can see them. They never say anything bad. Some don't say anything at all. Some are ill. The last time I was in the hospital there was a woman who never left my room. She was dressed in a white hospital gown and her eyes were bleeding. She was absolutely not scary. She was ill and waiting for someone to help her. She had no clue she was dead. Ok reading that in print sounds down right crazy, but I assure you I am as sane as anyone. I went to a counselor twice in my life and she was nuttier than me. She took a picture of my forehead and said I was stressed, Geesh,

Hence, if you have been diagnosed with TLE and also have premonitions, I would very much like to talk to you off thread. I am very dedicated to this topic. In addition to working as grant administrator for 12 years for a small city, I am also a freelance writer. I am currently interviewing people who have witnessed deathbed visions or experience a near death vision themselves.

Thanks for the response. I've had one-to-two second dizzy spells and some muscle cramping/numbness in the past seven years that they are guessing could be the tle seizures or mini-strokes. They aren't sure. A sleep deprived eeg showed evidence of tle. An MRI showed lesions. A second MRI 7 years later showed no further lesions so who knows what the cause. That's the short of it.

There is nothing short about the premonitions or 'visions' I've had. The 911 experience I wrote down at work and so when it happened our secretary looked at the notes I had written two months before. Those "seizures" happened one or two mornings a week for two months between 10AM and 10:30AM...never again after 911. I could literally bore you with details. We were once robbed and I told the police where the robber had pawned our jewlry. No one believed me of course until the kid who robbed us confessed a few weeks later that he had pawned the jewlry right at the location I had said.

It's funny you mention schizphrenia. When I turned 30, I was a professional, married with three kids. (My kids are now grown and fairly successful ---clinical psychologist, attorney and masters level special education teacher. My husband and I have been married 31 years. I say this just to let you know I'm fairly stable.) At that time, I thought to myself, well I'm not schizophrenic---it would have come out before now.

Anyway, I am intrigued by the subject and glad that you as an MD responded. My son-in-law is an MD---orthopedic surgeon---he has heard all of my crazy stories and always sits quietly pondering but says nothing. (What better response for your mother-in-law!!!)

If you have any other thoughts please let me know. I am not on medication because I've never lost consciousness. I'm a little worried about that choice. I don't want to have a seizure where I lose consciousness and some argue it could happen. I went to one or the best eptologists in PA and he agreed that he might risk it too since I am older and no one is sure what my seizures are.

People with LTE are wired to run on fast mode , we just look at people or events in a certain way and in a second we can predict were they come from , how they think , what their weight is ,were they live ,how they will react , what they can possibly do and what their logistics are and so forth , we are not phychics or have higher I.Q.s our brains just run on fast mode . But most of us will hate our fast brain mode once in a while when our fast mode crashes.

People with LTE are wired to run on fast mode , we just look at people or events in a certain way and in a second we can predict were they come from , how they think , what their weight is ,were they live ,how they will react , what they can possibly do and what their logistics are and so forth , we are not phychics or have higher I.Q.s our brains just run on fast mode . But most of us will hate our fast brain mode once in a while when our fast mode crashes.